After a week in-game, the coach came to us with news. The first meet was going to be in another week. It was the district qualifiers to the island tournament. You needed to place in the top 3 order of a competition to qualify for the island tournament later that year. Normally, that was it for B'mow Island. There were a couple of other islands and a mainland panhandle that made up a coastal duchy. The island paid its dues and was otherwise left alone due to the unique constitution of the residents here. By right, the top 3 in the island competition could apply to take part in the Raida Duchy tournament. Then it was the Geatin Kingdom tournament. There were only 4 high schools on the island: one for each district. That meant that the competition was just among ourselves. The other individual sports were the same way. Teams sports had an easy 4 team round robin each year. If I wanted to get out of here, I was going to need to get on the podium for the island tournament. I also needed a nice partner that could have my back. I did not think that getting off the island would be easy even if I won it.
There were 18 of us. There were 7 of the field events in play, the 11 solo races to run and the 2 relays. With all of that to do, there were more than enough chances to get through to the next stage. The coach put out a sign up sheet for what events we wanted to do at the meet. I looked at my stats and saw I had shitty endurance. My speed was boosted because of my specialty. Training with the guys helped out too. Due to that, I was going to need to enter the sprints. I would get slaughtered if I had to use my stamina to keep me in a good pace for longer than 400 meters. That settled had it for me. I signed up for the 100, 200 and 400 dashes. I did not want to jump over the hurdles. I had no training to prepare for that. I wanted to toss the javelin and do the long jump instead. That way I had some field events along with the races. Now it was time to look for some partners. I knew Anthony was a natural candidate. He also was skeptical on having babies. I walked up to him. "Hey Anthony. Let's team up for the 4x100 relay. I think we'd do great together." I said. He looked me a bit before smirking.
I wondered if he was going to turn me down. "Looks like I'm in high demand!" he said really loudly. Everyone turned to us. I was the first to ask about partnering up. I just shrugged and asked "So will you partner up with me?" It was better to just go along with others at times like these. He nodded and said "Sure. It's just the 4x100. No big deal." Micheal came over and said "I'll join too. I'm pretty fast." That was true. He was good at his sprints. His endurance was actually a bit better than mine too. I looked at my study group. They looked sad. "Looks like it's going to be us and Leo teaming up again this year." Oliver said. Leo said "That's fine with me. I wanted to ask you guys after practice, but it's good to get it out of the way now." There were 18 members here now. You needed 4 people to make a relay team. That meant there could only be 4 teams. 2 of us would sit out these races. By starting the discussions now, we had a team of 3. The triplets and Leo was the first full team. Aaron Jackson Noah and Andrew were another. They were all seniors enjoying their final year. I looked at Robert.
